HEY,David Chase,we ‘re all delighted that you and HBO have agreed to make even more episodes of “The Sopranos.”

But the news would be even better if you could do one more small thing for us:Get the thing back on TV already!

You really have to wonder if HBO is taking us for granted.By “us ” I mean “Sopranos ” fans who have supported this show through thick and thin – when certain seasons or individual episodes have not lived up to expections,and

when we ‘ve had to wait as long as 15 months between seasons. Currently,we ‘re waiting even longer.Twelve new episodes of “The Sopranos ” in production now for the series ‘ sixth season are scheduled to start airing in March

of next year.That ‘s a full two years since the start of season 5,and 21 months since season 5 ended on June 6,2004.

Waiting this long for a TV show to resume is unheard-of.Viewer attention spans are notoriously short.If enough time goes by,viewers might find it harder to remember everything that has taken place on a series as rich as “The Sopra-

nos.” They might also forget why they used to care. And they might resent getting jerked around,too.Before every

“Sopranos ” season,,the same questions arise.Will it be back for another season?And if so,how long will they take this time to make new episodes?

There was a time when the fifth season was presumed to be the “Sopranos ‘” last..Then,HBO announced a sixth season,although that season would take longer to produce than any previous one. And earlier this month,HBO

announced that Chase had agreed to make an additional eight episodes – a miniature seventh season – that would premiere in January 2007.

Here ‘s the riskiest part of taking all that time to make a TV show: Viewers might naturally assume all that extra production time will result in the greatest TV drama ever made. Their expectations might be so high that they will be impossible to meet.

When it premiered in January 1999 (yes,it was that long ago), “The Sopranos ” stood alone..It possessed cinematic qualities previously unseen in any made-for-television drama. Today,while many TV dramas are still run-of-the-mill,the qualities that made “The Sopranos ” so special are no longer unique. From “The Shield ” and “Rescue Me ” to “Six Feet Under ” ((whose final episode this week is an out-and-out masterpiece),television drama has matured since “The Sopranos ” came on the scene and changed everything. “The Sopranos ” set the standard.